first, on the phone from northern syria, cnn's arwa damon. arwa, you have been inside, and we understand a lot of the communications is now down across syria. what do we know? >> reporter: can i tell you right now the area i'm in at the very least there is no cell phone reception or no power. people are telling us that this has been the case for quite some time now, and this particular area, in fact, they say that the internet has been shut down for three to four months. we're hearing reports of various internet blackouts taking place throughout the entire country. op sfwligs active i says saying this is a tactic that the assad regime has used in the past, although not as widespread as it seems to be in this case. we've been traveling quite extensively over the last two days, and what is quite striking is that areas, neighborhoods, cities that, one could not travel through, say, two months ago because they were under the control of the assad regime or because they were battle zones are now beginning to have signs of civilian life returning to